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L.A. County Now Has 58 Billionaires
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, left, and Elon Musk, right. (Photos via Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images and Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
How many billionaires live in Los Angeles County? 58. That's the latest count published in the Los Angeles Business Journal's annual "Wealthiest Angelenos" list (which, almost apropos, sits behind a paywall).
As per the list, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the former UCLA Medical School professor, co-discoverer of the breast cancer drug Abraxane, and South African immigrant, took the top spot for the ninth year in a row. The LABJ notes Soon-Shiong's net worth as $18 billion, yet Forbes reports it to be $8.2 billion as of May 2017.
Second on the list is Elon Musk, the Telsa/Space X/Solar City CEO, and also a South African immigrant. LABJ cites Musk's net worth at $14.2 billion. A shift in both Soon-Shiong's NantHealth stock price, and that of Musk's Tesla Motors, however, has reordered the list, and it's believe that Musk now has the top spot. Musk's most recent net worth estimation is $15.3 billion, reports Forbes.
Rounding out the top five wealthiest is Facebook and Spotify investor Sean Parker with $9.07 billion, tech entrepreneur John Tu with $8.95 billion, and real estate magnate turned art patron Eli Broad with $8.24 billion.
The combined net worth of the L.A.'s richest totals $203 billion—more than twice the value of the net assets of the Walt Disney Co. Furthermore, this year's list welcomed newcomers Jay Z and Beyonce, real estate developer Geoffrey Palmer, and Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.
And if 58 sounds like a lot, New York City clocked 82 billionaires this year, and the Bay Area has 49.
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